“I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw — the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can’t I say that, Willy?

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“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

― George Orwell, Animal Farm

This quote comes from the final chapter of George Orwell’s novella “Animal Farm,” which was published in 1945. The story is an allegory for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Soviet Union under Stalin’s rule. In the novella, a group of farm animals overthrow their human owner and establish a society based on the principles of animalism, which promotes equality among all animals.

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“It makes no difference what men think of war…War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner.”

“Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy is often regarded as one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. The book is set in the mid-19th century and follows a nameless protagonist, known only as “the Kid,” as he joins a group of Indian-hunters led by the ruthless Judge Holden. The novel is a brutal, unflinching portrayal of violence and the human condition.

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